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It’s Fezzik who suggested they take turns being the Dread Pirate Roberts. “It would add something unexpected to our lives. Like a raisin in an apple pie,” he observed calmly.
“I think I would rather die,” Inigo rhymed. They were bedded down under a large beech tree, and though they vowed that they would split up at the trail head – with Westley and Buttercup going back to farm life and Inigo and Fezzik finally making it to the docks to take up work on the Revenge – it seemed less and less likely that they would part.
“Cheer up now, my good man,” Westley said. “Why, it would be downright delightful! Four different Roberts, all of them different shapes and sizes. It would confuse our enemies and delight the children!”
“Children?” Buttercup asked idly.
“I didn’t agree to children,” Inigo remarked.
“Not our children specifically,” said Westley. “Children in villages! Children who will idolize us!”
“Oh, those children,” said Fezzik. “I was wondering where they came from.”
“Why, it’s a better idea than hiding on a farm forever,” said Westley. “Sticking around on a farm for a couple of years? They would find us and shove us in a dungeon in two minutes. But a ship? A disguise?” he grinned. “Well, we could always get away. Our address would never be fixed; our abode ever-moving.”
“We could get a circus cart,” said Buttercup. “It feels like the same idea.”
He tutted her and wrapped his arm around her belly. “Darling, I know you’ve had your fill of adventures….”
“Up to the tip of my throat with them,” Buttercup confessed. “I want to sit in one place for a very long time and feel the sun on my hands and think of nothing more complex than how many sugars I’d like in my tea.”
“Who can blame her, after the shrieking eels?” Inigo asked.
“But darling, you were meant to swing through the world with…the what?” Westley threw in.
“Never mind. It is too long an explanation and will give her nightmares,” said Inigo.
“Right,” Westley said, clearly putting pin in that thought for later. “Buttercup, my dear – I will strike a bargain with you…”
“…Is it the same kind of bargain that nearly caused me to be married to another man?” she retorted.
“No, different idea,” retorted Westley. “Let’s give piracy another year. We’ll continue to make our fortune and – if either of us says uncle – we’ll fully cede the works to Inigo and Fezzik and go back to the farming idea.”
Buttercup sighed and pushed back a handful of her golden hair. She leaned up against Fezzik as she settled up, and he instinctively leaned upon Inigo. There was something special in the instinctive way that they worked to comfort one another, even when they did so without thinking about it. “Only a year?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Do you promise?”
“I do,” he said, “And as you know, I’ve never been the sort to break my word.”
“He’s right,” Inigo said. “Everything Westley has ever told me he would do, he has done.”
“Except for slaying the prince,” said Fezzik.
“Oh, I never said I’d kill him – just make him suffer,” Westley said.
“Is he suffering?” Buttercup asked. She got up and brushed her skirts off, feeling the eyes of the men in the party rest heavily upon her.
“He’s alive, isn’t he?” asked Westley.
***
Westley spends most of his first day on board the Revenge teaching Inigo the Dread Pirate Roberts basics. The laugh, the smile; how much black to wear, and when to come forth with a bon mot. To be fair to Inigo, he didn’t really need any help doing that, but Westley was deliberately fair with him, going over all of the things he’d learned from Ryan. Westley had learned never out a critical detail – if you fail to tell someone how to tie a sheep shank, the whole mast might fall down.
It was while teaching Inigo how to tie a knot that Westley first kissed him. Right there, in the tropical breeze, as the sun shone against his hair. They kissed and kissed, and then broke apart and stammered something about the weather and the sunlight.
Dinner was awkward. Buttercup and Fezzik did not guess what they had done. Inigo and Westley did not volunteer any information. The rolls were rough and coarse and made them both feel like they were chugging worms for a moment.
The following morning, Inigo made his debut as the Dread Pirate Roberts and acquitted himself splendidly. Everyone agreed he was doing well. Tip top. One of the four best Roberts of all time.
Word began getting out that the Dread Pirate had developed a sudden fondness for Spanish.
**
Buttercup had been the one to sew Fezzik’s Dread Pirate Roberts costume together, and he surely made quite the impression on the crew. Fezzik was kind and uncomplaining as she worked upon his costume. Kind and uncomplaining, he had smiled upon seeing the finished product and kissed Buttercup’s cheek. She had blushed, surprised and warmed by his attentions.
A very tall, very loud Roberts led the ship through a fight with a merchant trader’s barge. They won the day of course, easily. By now, the rumors coming from the Revenge were so utterly confused to the troubadours and the scribes who spoke of them that none bothered to consult with each other.
***
The discussion was no discussion at all, in the end. Westley simply got a bigger bed for the Captain’s quarters and made it obvious Inigo and Fezzik could visit it, in any combination they liked. Furtive conversations went down, without accusations being slung – it was all innocent of course, this quadrangling. They ended up together without a single thought – happily accruing their fortunes. A year came and went, and Westley did not ask his wife if she wanted to go home, because Buttercup was quite obviously happy.
She made it clear later that night. When a small, blonde Roberts appeared on the foredeck and pulled out a trefoil, holding at bay the Lieutenant Governor of the Bahamas, it was clear she had made more than one choice to commit to this life, to the three of them.